EMI's owner Guy Hands is a visionary, and he's been having visions of cutting jobs at least since January, when EMI announced job cuts of roughly 1,500-2,000 (TMT News). In April, word got out that 2,000 more jobs would also get the axe. If in fact this second round of layoffs becomes true -- EMI denied the cuts -- the company would be reduced to roughly 2,000 jobs. And since Guy Hands and his buyout firm Terra Firma originally purchased EMI with 4,500 employees, that means roughly 56% of the jobs will have been axed by the time the last ex-employee shuffles out the door.
The latest round of layoffs are currently happening (since yesterday), and if you can't glean my excitement, I'm literally jumping up and down here, smiling from ear to ear. Here's a bullet-point list courtesy of Hypebot:
- 10 are out at Blue Note, mostly in NYC
- Capitol Nashville VP of A&R Larry Willoughby and VP of Sales Bill Kennedy
- Denise Arguijo, a production manager in Nashville
- Capital_records David Pak and a number of others exit from Caroline
- In house art and design staffs suffering severe cuts
- Anything that can be outsourced will be
- Expect more pink slips and details today
EMI will continue to focus on A&R, digital music, and corporate sponsorship, but maybe it should look into outsourcing Mr. Hands' job. Meanwhile, Coldplay's Viva La Vida (TMT Review) will top the Billboard charts with 721,000 sold.
